78% of older teenagers in Japan anxious about natural disasters, survey says

By Magdalena Osumi

Some 77.6 percent of people in Japan aged 17 to 19 feel “anxious” about natural hazards and major disasters, according to findings in a recent online survey of 800 young people.

In February, Tokyo-based think tank The Nippon Foundation asked teenagers across the nation how they feel about natural disasters, ahead of the eighth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that killed at least 15,897 and left more than 2,500 unaccounted for in March 2011.

[...]

Of the 621 respondents who said they feel anxious over disasters, 68.9 percent cited the country’s susceptibility to calamities as a factor.

[...]

In the survey, just 42.3 percent of the teenagers had an emergency kit prepared and only 41.4 percent of respondents knew that in an emergency they could use the Dial 171 disaster message board.

[...]

[...]